The sixteenth-century reformer Martin Luther said that the gospel comes to us in the form of promise: God has acted and will act to save us. The God of the Bible...

This psalm begins with the celebration of King David’s oath: “I will not give sleep to my eyes . . . until I find a place for the Lord.” A few...

These verses offer us an image for just, faithful leadership: “One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun...

Anxiety can be driven by unrest and violence, the loss of old certainties and the rise of new ones, accelerating change and the dis-ease that seems to arise spontaneously when times...

Some years ago, I served as Canon Educator at Washington National Cathedral, and I frequently met guest speakers at the airport. On one occasion our guest was a New Testament scholar...

Forgiveness is not a private transaction. Together we are members of the household of God, “sprinkled clean” by the waters of baptism. Even the grammar of the exhortation in today’s passage...

The book of Hebrews was written to a Christian congregation sometime after 70 c.e. when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. It is an exhortation or a sermon to a congregation....

Hannah’s prayer in the second chapter of First Samuel and the poetry of David at the end of Second Samuel (22–23:7) provide thematic bookends to the stories of Samuel, Saul, and...

Our approach to prayer is often transactional. We lift a concern in prayer. We wait for an answer, and we test the value of our prayers against the quality of the...

The story of Hannah draws us into a conversation about our dependence upon God and our capacity for trust. Appearing at the beginning of First Samuel, Hannah’s plight is not just...